A bitter truth about chocolate

As you may have read in the Spotlight last week, our local Fair Trade Town campaign has been renamed from Fair Trade Delmar to Fair Trade Bethlehem NY, to reflect the fact that we are reaching out to the whole town, not just a part of it.

For Fair Trade issues are relevant to all of us – if we drink coffee, eat chocolate or bananas, wear cotton clothing…or use any one of a number of common products sourced from the developing world.

How much do we know about the lives of the people who provide us with these products that we use every day? Do we care that they may live in extreme poverty, and that conventional trade, by driving down commodity prices, may be keeping them that way? In our daily lives and transactions we expect to be treated fairly – Fair Trade extends that right to producers in developing countries, too.

To see where extreme poverty can lead, consider cocoa/chocolate production. How much do you know about where your chocolate comes from? The facts aren’t too sweet. In West Africa, where more than 70% of the world’s cocoa is grown, economic pressures on farmers result in a high prevalence of child trafficking and forced child labor on cocoa plantations. Modern-day slavery is alive and well – and it’s in our chocolate.

Fair Trade Bethlehem NY invites you to come and find out more about this important issue next Thursday, October 14 at 7pm at Bethlehem Public Library. There will be a screening of The Dark Side of Chocolate, a new documentary uncovering the unpalatable truth about child slavery in the cocoa/chocolate industry. The 45-minute film will be followed by a discussion of what we as consumers can do to put a stop to this abuse of children.